


The Black Dahlia

by petertheparkerpus_mjmonogram



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Pre-Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), michelle jones is a little cutie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23809660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petertheparkerpus_mjmonogram/pseuds/petertheparkerpus_mjmonogram
Summary: The iconic necklace's backstory
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	The Black Dahlia

**Author's Note:**

> you get a developing pj story! and YOU get a developing pj story!!! im obsessed with their developing relationship what can i say? i have no excuse :'''''>>>

MJ was just about to leave class when she finds Peter, head hunched over on his seat’s table, moping in his own self-pity spiral right there.

Part of her wants to run away, knowing she would probably want to try and comfort him; an act that she is never comfortable with because let’s face it, she’s shit at it.

She promptly heads over to his seat, pokes him on the head, and asks him “Alright, what’s wrong, Parker?” anyways. MJ had problems with self-control sometimes.

“Nothing, it’s stupid,” Peter says, half his face muffled by both his arms hunched around him as he lays his head on the table of his arm chair.

“You wouldn’t have that mopey expression on your face if it was just nothing, Peter.”

MJ grabs the seat nearest, drags it closer to his, and lightly smacks his shoulder.

“Come on, spill.”

Peter gives MJ a sad self-pity look. MJ gives him one right back that says just fucking tell me already.

Peter sighs and removes his head from its sad mopey spot on the chair’s table and just sort of lies down in a lazy position on his seat.

“It’s just that I had this whole presentation planned. And I was even really excited about it, really nervous too, but mostly just excited to do it and maybe do well on something that I had to actually work hard on - cause I basically know zilch about history - and it just…”

Peter sighs and buries his head under his arms.

“…went to shit”

Peter removes his arms from his head and looks back at MJ.

“And I just, I thought things would be different but now… I feel like I’m just back to square one.”

“I just thought that I was doing better,” says Peter lastly, burying himself back to his first self-pity spiral position on the chair’s arm.

MJ didn’t really know how to react. She’d seen Peter be his mopey self probably more times than she should have, but that was all from a reasonable distance where she wasn’t really obliged to intervene. This was actually the first time where Peter seemed to be opening up to her about what was troubling him. (probably because it wasn’t spider-man related but that’s beside the point). Right now, she needed to say something and quick. Fuck. What the hell made her good authority to get pep talks from anyways? She. doesn’t. know. what to say.

“Peter… I don’t really know what to say to you. To be honest, I’m kind of surprised you actually told me.”

That makes Peter lift himself off of his self-pity pile because THAT is ridiculous.

“But why?”

“Well, I’m not exactly the most comforting type aren’t I?” admits MJ, not looking at Peter when she does.

“What!? Of course you are! You’ve been a really good friend to me, MJ. How could you say that?” says Peter genuinely shocked.

“There’s more to being a good friend than giving you notes and keeping you informed on what you miss, Peter,” says MJ with an awkward smile, in an almost self-deprecatory, but mostly just shy tone.

“Okay first, that is not all our relationship is. How dare you?” says Peter, sarcastic accusatory tone overtly over the top, pointing fingers and all.

It makes MJ smile and consequently roll her eyes and shake her head in exasperation to try and hide said smile.

“But even if it was, who else does that for me? I mean Ned’s been my best friend since like forever so us having each other’s backs is kind of just automatic by now. But ever since I can remember knowing you, you’ve always been really nice to me for some reason, or at the very least you didn’t shit on me like everyone else did. But really though, we’ve gotten kind of closer over the past year, haven’t we?”

“Yeah… I guess we have,” MJ says, smiling, after a beat of contemplation over their past year.

“So, as my friend, you aren’t allowed to talk shit about my friends, deal?” Peter says, handing out his hand to settle their agreement with a handshake.

And even though MJ finds it incredibly corny and probably against everything she stands for, she finds herself smiling to herself, grabbing Peter’s extended hand, shaking it, and saying “Deal.”

It was impossible for anyone to be this nice immediately thought MJ as her hand was still linked to Peter’s.

“Goddamn it,” says MJ, now she’s burying her face with her hands.

“What?”

“I was supposed to be comforting you and you just ended up comforting me,” says MJ taking her hands off her face to look at Peter.

“Hey what’d I tell ya? Stop talking shit about yourself,” Peter says, straightening himself up, crossing his arms to make sure MJ knows he’s serious.

And it was like a switch inside MJ just flipped, because Peter had unknowingly unintentionally just challenged her and her intuitive whip smart one liner self was finally back on the wheel again.

“I’ll stop when you stop,” she suavely replies, even mirroring his crossed arms.

“What?” Peter falters, his serious demeanor just snapped away like that.

MJ braces herself and takes a breath, she was about to make Peter Parker eat his words.

“Peter, a few minutes ago, you were just going on and on about how-”

MJ proceeds to do an angsty brooding over the top impression of Peter.

_“You are such a disappointment to yourself. You’re the worst. You thought you were better than this.”_

MJ doesn’t even want to acknowledge that she made Peter laugh with her corny impression of him.

“When you literally just managed to cheer me up and comfort me despite the fact that you were the one who was all mopey in the first place.”

And MJ merely huffs in frustration, Peter was too fucking ridiculous.

Simply put, Peter’s speechless. She completely had him played.

But after a beat, MJ’s tone shifts.

“You are better than you give yourself credit for, Peter Parker,” MJ says with all the genuineness she can muster. She needs Peter to know this.

And at that, Peter’s heart just turns to putty and he has an overwhelming urge to just reciprocate the appreciation he can’t believe he’s hearing from MJ right now.

“Right back at you, Michelle Jones,” says Peter with the stupidest grateful smile MJ has ever seen.

She just can’t.

“Uughhh okay okay. We have to stop with all these gooey feelings talk,” MJ says, literally standing up and taking herself out of the intimate close space.

“Unless of course you still need to talk though? Are you okay? Ya still need some…” MJ shudders in disgust, “ughh heart to heart pep talks?”

Peter laughs at that.

“No no you have officially fulfilled your friend duties for today, MJ” says Peter, feeling as if a weight has just been lifted off of him.

As freeing and happily surprising as it was to get her feelings off her chest, MJ breathes a big sigh of relief over not having to do any more of these feelings shit.

“Ok, good, cause I don’t think I can handle more than two vulnerability talks in one day.”

MJ looks outside the classroom’s door and sees the next class starting to head there.

“Wanna head out together?” MJ asks pointing her head towards the school’s exit.

“Yeah, sure,” Peter replies, trying so hard to keep the smile on his face over MJ’s invitation in check.

“Oh hey, I was too busy moping about my own presentation that I completely forgot about yours,” Peter says, walking alongside MJ at midtown’s hallway.

“You did really really well, MJ. If I’m being honest, I kinda hate you for it.”

“Ha thanks, Peter,” says MJ smiling at Peter for the briefest of moments.

“Although, I gotta ask. Out of all the murders that I know you know, why’d you choose the black dahlia?”

“Okay, you know what? Fuck it, I’m gonna do this,” MJ says, making a big deal to stop walking and turn around to face Peter.

“Do what?” Peter asks, completely unaware of what is happening.

“Peter, I could easily tell you all the amazingly gorey nitty gritty details of what makes the dahlia so fascinating. But in honor of us hitting what, I think, is a major friendship milestone today, I’m gonna tell you the truth.”

“Ooohh… a look inside the mysterious depths of the great MJ,” Peter says on instinct; he loves playfully making fun of MJ, he loves that he can do that with her.

“Alright, fine. You won’t find out then.” And MJ immediately just starts walking again. Two can play at this game, Parker, MJ thinks to herself.

“No no no, come on tell me,” Peter runs after her, grazing M J’s hand with his by just the briefest of moments in the process of trying to get her to come back.

MJ looks down on the floor and doesn’t look at Peter when she curses and just quietly mumbles “The flower.”

“What?” Peter asks, genuinely not hearing what she said.

By this time, MJ’s spent with Peter. She was not going to do that again, and so MJ summons all her coolness and intelligence to support her embarrassing personal reveal.

“The flower, okay? I know that it seems way too superficial of me to like a murder because it’s famous for the flower used. But come on, think about it, what other famous flower gets recognized for being involved in a series of grisly murders? None, so you know what? I actually stand by my reasoning. The black dahlia’s fucking badass,” MJ says all at once, slightly out of breath from all the words she just said so fast, but her posture still no nonsense, her arms crossed.

Peter. finds. MJ. so. fucking. cute. This is impossible to deal with right now Peter thinks to himself.

“Well, what? Now you know, Parker. You wanted to know so the least you could do is… say something,” MJ says, her insecurity starting to creep into her voice and mannerisms. Why won’t Peter just fucking say something already? MJ nervously kept thinking to herself as Peter processed MJ’s cuteness.

“Well… nothing, if anything i think it’s really sweet that you liked the murder because it’s famous for using a flower” Peter finally says, boyish smile and look of adoration on his face.

MJ’s shyness quickly turns to frustration at Peter’s misinterpretation and simplification of her rationale.

“No! Okay, you know what no. You are taking this completely the wrong way,” MJ says completely serious and quick to rapid fire defend her reasons for liking the black dahlia.

Peter’s chuckling. MJ’s so cute when she opens up like this and rambles about something she cares about.

“I like the fact that the flower is not just beautiful in and of itself, but it also has a darkness and richness to it that one you don’t see any other people appreciating enough, and two that the flower can be beautiful despite being involved in such a horrid messy thing. I’d argue it makes it even more beautiful because it’s involved in something so macabre. Its imperfections making it seem realer and truer to life than any other idealistic pretty meaningful flowers.”

By the end of her rant, MJ is smiling to herself because she really does care so much and she’s really glad to get this off her chest and to have someone to talk about this with.

Peter’s in awe. “Wow so you’re telling me…”

MJ revealed something deeply personal to her that she was incredibly shy about; there was only one course of action.

“Michelle Jones has a favourite flower” Peter says with the biggest shit eating grin on his face.

“Okay, you know what? I’m done, you can walk home on your own” MJ says immediately jokingly walking away frustrated but also like not really; more embarrassed and she wants Peter to shut up completely, but also she’s really happy right now. It’s hard to explain.

“Whaaat? MJ, come on,” Peter says, still left standing where he was when MJ started walking away.

“Like you said, your imperfections make you more beautiful” he semi-shouts, making his voice louder, as he follows MJ.

And as MJ simply kept walking away, flipping him off as she does, Peter really can’t help but feel that he actually did mean what he said, and he hopes he just had the guts to admit it to her.

Fuck he’s falling and he’s falling hard, man. He really had to do something about this soon.


End file.
